General News
Calls for change at governance forums
Jan 31, 2008 4:10 PM
Participants at the Staten Island forum respond to a question.
The UFT has begun gathering input from the community on school governance at public forums being held in each of the five boroughs.
Two of six scheduled forums have been held so far, and parents, community members and other stakeholders in the city’s public education system came out to make recommendations ahead of the 2009 sunset of mayoral control.
The majority of people who made formal statements in Staten Island and Manhattan cited problems and called for ways to allow more checks and balances on principals, superintendents and the chancellor.
“We want the decision-making to happen at the school level,” Loretta Prisco, an educator and parent in Staten Island, stated in criticizing the limited power of school leadership teams. “Children’s habits of democratic participation should be learned in school. The SLTs are only advising. We envision a school being given the support it needs,” said Prisco.
Several Staten Island parents protested the C30 process, which is intended to allow SLTs to help select administrators at their schools. But the principal can override decisions made by the SLT, said Patty Stucker, a PTA and SLT leader, who said she had become frustrated with the C30 process. “It is administered to appease parents and make them believe they have a voice in decisions, but they really don’t,” she said.
In Manhattan, the leaders of a new student union formed over a year ago to educate students citywide about policy issues affecting them and to lobby on behalf of student concerns offered a formal statement.
The students said mayoral control leaves too much power in the hands of the mayor and chancellor.
Seth Pearce, president of the New York City Student Union, offered a solution to the problem: “Just as the [U.S.] secretary of education is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate, so should the chancellor be appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council.” Students and teachers should be on the chancellor’s selection board, said the LaGuardia HS senior.
Dana O’Brien, also a LaGuardia senior, pointed out inherent communication problems within a city that has 1,400 schools, each with its own individual needs and community. “All official information comes from one source, which can skew information to make itself look good,” she said. She and other student union members have been critical of the DOE’s school progress reports.
Josh Karan, a long-time parent leader who currently serves on the Community Education Council in District 6, made several recommendations to improve the present form of mayoral control, including changes to the structure of the citywide Parent Education Panel, or PEP, which replaced the central Board of Education
“The PEP must be comprised of educators and they should not be easily removed,” said Karan, alluding to a flap several years back when Mayor Michael Bloomberg replaced several members of the panel.
For more information on the forums, see below.
The remaining dates
BRONX: Thursday, Feb. 7, 4 p.m., Bronx UFT office, 2500 Halsey St. Contact: Hector Ruiz at 1-718-862-6074 or hruiz@uft.org.
BROOKLYN: Tuesday, Feb. 12, 4:30 p.m., Brooklyn UFT office, 335 Adams St., 24th Floor. Contact: Armando Blasse at 1-718-852-4900 or ablasse@uft.org.
MANHATTAN: Wednesday, Feb. 13, 6 p.m., MS 104, 330 East 21st St. (between First and Second avenues). Contact: Monique McCoy at 1-212-598-6835 or mmccoy@uft.org.
QUEENS: Thursday, Feb. 28, 4 p.m., Queens UFT office, 97-77 Queens Blvd., 8th Floor (Rego Park). Contact: Diane Ganz at 1-718-275-4400 or dganz@uft.org.
